1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile terminal, and more particularly, to a mobile terminal having a flexible display unit that is stored in a main body by rolling and used by unrolling to the outside of the main body whenever required.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The sizes of mobile terminals, such as a mobile communication terminal, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), Portable Multimedia Player (PMP), and electronic scheduler, are becoming smaller for better portability. However, mobile terminal users prefer a larger and wider display screen to receive various kinds of information, such as character information, moving pictures, still images, MP3 files, and games.
However, there is a limitation to altering the display screen, because reducing the size of the mobile terminal inevitably results in reducing the size of the display screen.
To solve the above limitation, mobile terminals having a flexible display unit have been introduced recently. For example, Polymer Vision, a subsidiary company of Philips, exhibited ‘Readius’ at IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung) in 2005. The Readius is a flexible display unit having a 5-inch active matrix screen, and is rolled into a tubular main body with a radius less than 7.5 mm when the active matrix screen is not in use. The flexible display unit uses a thin plastic display panel instead of a glass display panel.
However, the flexible display unit when unrolled from the main body has poor flatness compared to a rigid display unit using a glass panel. Additionally, because the flexible display unit is rolled and stored in the main body, the flexible display unit may have a problem of being rolled back and could be distorted by a restitutive force.